Trans Day of Remembrance 2025
Lost lights
Note: I delivered this message at the Transgender Day of Remembrance service at Claremont United Church of Christ on Thursday, November 20th. You can watch the service here, or read it below.
The world is a darker place than it should be today. Hundreds of transgender people we know of, and likely thousands more that we don’t, are gone. One by one, with few headlines, no stadium-sized vigils. These are people who lit the lives of those around them — friends, family, or just the person they ran into at the store and were met with a kind smile. Someone somewhere today is wishing they could get a hug from their best friend, only to remember: they will never hug their friend again.
Transgender Day of Remembrance is such an important day for our community, and this year is one I’m finding particularly difficult. This year, trans people have faced a relentless onslaught of attacks from some of the most powerful people in our country.
Why are there over 900 anti-LGBTQ+ bills1 proposed across the country just this year? Why are so many of them designed to target trans kids? Why does enforcing the gender binary warrant a mention in a presidential inauguration speech? Why are trans people mocked multiple times in a State of the Union address? And why do so many who call themselves Christian fail to stand up and say “this is not how we love our neighbors”?
Those familiar with the story of Jesus’ birth will know that the first thing the Roman Empire did upon learning of him was to try to kill him. King Herod learns from the magi that a child has been born who they say will become King of the Jews. This possible threat to Empire is all Herod needs in order for him to turn murderous. Failing to locate Jesus specifically, he gives orders to kill every boy under two years of age.
Herod did this because he thought that Jesus would change his world. A threat to his power was coming.
I often think about the knee-jerk rejection of trans people, particularly by conservative Christians. I’m not the first to think this, but they reject us because we break so many of their rules. Our society has been organized around gender divisions for so long, that the existence of people who can transcend those rules can only be understood as a threat. What is a church with male-only pastors to do when a trans man arrives and wants to preach? What about when one of their pastors comes out as a trans woman? What about women’s ministries? Outside of the church, how do we affect bathrooms, or sports, or the military?
On January 27th, after several other awful anti-trans executive orders earlier in the week, the president signed a new one banning anyone with gender dysphoria from serving in the military. It said that transgender people are categorically incapable of honor, truth, discipline, humility, and selflessness. Simply for being who we are.
In the onslaught of near-daily attacks by the new administration, I can’t have been the only one in the community holding my breath, wondering how long it would be before we heard of tragedy. I saw regular social media posts in the trans community that said something like, “remember, your number one job right now is simply to stay alive until tomorrow.”
I want to say right now: I am so proud of our community for how we supported each other and cared for each other this year. The trans community has rallied and protected itself in this time, just as it has so many times before. There are fewer names this year than last. It’s always an incomplete list, but in a year where we’ve been targeted more than any other in recent memory, I can’t be the only one who feared just how long this year’s list would be. But we worked hard, in so many ways, to protect each other, even from our own hands. That work saved lives, though we’ll never know how many.
But four days after Trump’s order, on the morning of January 31st, someone spotted a flag hanging atop the Syracuse Veterans Affairs parking garage. But, far from the kind in our national anthem that gave hope and courage to those who saw it, this transgender pride flag was draped over the hanging body of Elisa Rae Shupe. Shupe served in the Army for 18 years and, in 2016, became the first in the country to obtain legal non-binary identification. She had a complicated journey, including a detransition and later retransition to female. A suicide note showed the depth of betrayal she felt, and, tragically, the degree to which she simply saw no path forward in Trump’s America.
The maddening inevitability of our losses is something I wrote about on my blog on October 7th. I wrote,
There are precious trans souls alive right now. Living, breathing, trying to make their way in this world. Maybe fast asleep, maybe watching a favorite show. They might have gone to work or school today, and hugged a friend or said, “I love you,” to their mom.
Here is a fact so awful it makes me want to scream until my voice is gone: some of them will also be among those we have lost come November 20th.
Two weeks later, on October 23rd, 21 year-old Lia Smith was lost to suicide while attending Middleberry college. While she had competed in women’s swimming and diving, she stopped as she said she was “not welcome.” A double-major in computer-science and statistics, Lia had also spoken on a panel in favor of trans rights, closing with the words, “Know that there are people in your community who are here for you and care about you.”
And on October 27th, we also lost Marisol Payero to suicide. Marisol was a 22 year-old student at Kennesaw State University and would have graduated next month, completing her degree in History Education. As President of the Kennesaw Pride Alliance, she helped open a new Pride Center after the university closed its LGBTQ+ resource center due to cuts in diversity programs.
As is commonly said - we do not know the full circumstances of these deaths, but suicide never happens in isolation of societal factors. This is a system designed to make people feel desperate, isolated, and without hope. It’s a system that is, at its best, indifferent to our deaths. And there are some who hear of our deaths and cheer.
Many of those we grieve today were not lost to suicide, but were murdered. As always, black trans women make up the majority of those killed. The violence includes seemingly random killings, killings at the hands of romantic partners or friends, and of course, clear hate crimes. Even though many of these cases include “no motive was known”, frequently friends or family express suspicion that the murder was a hate crime. This includes 27 year-old Kamora Jones, whose body was found in her bedroom by her own mother, possibly killed by an intimate partner. Her mother said she was, “an animal-lover who could make anyone laugh. Someone with a big heart and a life cut far too short.” But even when we don’t know that these women were killed for being trans, many of them were forced into lives that are vulnerable to this kind of violence. Their existence alone is so powerful that it undermines white supremacy, gender hierarchy, and so many other systems all at once. So these women are frequently relegated to lives of insecure housing and food, many being forced to engage in sex work just to survive. These incredible, beautiful women are some of the strongest people in the country, with more courage than I can even imagine. Why couldn’t they live in a world that honored them?
And then there are those whose deaths defy not just reason, but comprehension. Sam Nordquist was a 24 year-old biracial transgender man who worked at a group home for disabled people in Minnesota. After going missing in early December, his remains were found in February in a field. Investigators eventually determined that, during those two months, people he thought were his friends, including one he lived with, had tortured him in ways I cannot describe. His murderers are not being charged with a hate crime, in part because some of them were also queer.
And I look for some reason for the senseless, some hope to counter the loss, knowing that neither is fully possible.
I have a cisgender friend who said, about trans people, “You are the revolution.” And the trans community is indeed revolutionary. We break all kinds of things. We show the world a kind of freedom they’ve never known. We shine. Trans friends: we shine so brightly that the world covers its eyes and lashes out rather than allow us to reshape their warped lenses. If they let us be ourselves, we will change everything. If only they allowed themselves to see how good that would be.
As a Christian, I read Genesis and I understand that God made all sorts of people and called us good. I see God promise in Isaiah to give eunuchs names “better than sons or daughters.” I see a God who is masculine and feminine and everything in between and beyond, and I see God trying to brighten the world through the people they have created. And I know that God weeps with us tonight. Trans people, whether Christian or not, are brilliant lights showing freedom and love to the world.
And so, we keep shining. We fight for joy and liberation for ourselves and all of our beautiful siblings who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, pansexual, intersex, asexual, aromantic, and anyone else who understands themselves as queer, which in turn brings liberation to all. We dance, we care, we hope, we dream, and we love, and we do it together. Trans family: we love so fiercely. Anyone who gets to spend time with us, I’d like to think, is changed for the better. Someday, someday, the world will understand that.
But tonight, we grieve those who are no longer with us today. We thank them for the beauty they shared with us. And we promise them that we will remember them and continue to fight for a world filled with their light.
Sorry for the lack of usual links and footnotes. Since this talk was meant to be read, I didn’t add all of the usual citations.
Thank you; beautifully said. Brings tears to this Mama Bear's eyes for my trans daughter and all our trans friends.
This is so beautiful and moving and heartbreaking all at once. Thank you, Celeste. You are a shining light.